Plateau
by Ray-Tiger-Cat
Summary: [Warning: Character Death] [Oneshot] Kai's whole life has been devoted to beyblade and becoming the best blader in the world. He will not give up until he has reached his goal, but what happens when the goal is too high to reach?


RTC: Hey, this is a random oneshot that popped into my head in the middle of the night a few days ago. It's just a drabble on some of my feelings and insecurities. I'll explain properly at the end. And before I forget, this is for my friend Phoenix from the Flames 1978, who despite being my friend longest, I've never actually thanked her for all the help with my fics in an author's note, and she deserves to get some recognition! Little bit more about her at the bottom of this too. Now do the disclaimer my muses! 

Ray: The insane child known as Ray-Tiger-Cat does not own Beyblade.

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He grew up living and breathing beyblade, we all knew that. His whole life had revolved around the sport and for so long, it was all he knew.

He spent many hours, which turned into many weeks, then months and years practicing at the abbey. He wanted to be the best, the very best. Under the harsh eyes of his grandfather and Boris, he trained. At first, it was only to make them leave him alone, but pretty soon he realized that he loved it.

Before long, he was endowered with the family bitbeast, and he became his only friend. Together, they knew they were destined for greatness. They beat all the opponents within the abbey and were known as the best. But by this time, that was not enough. They wanted more. They wanted to be the best in the world.  
And so they left the imprisoning walls of the abbey to fulfill their goal. Children were no match and even many teenagers twice his size could not beat him. He became the leader of a notorious gang called the blade Sharks and they beat every single person that dared to challenge them. He was unstoppable.

But then he came. Tyson. The one person that finally defeated him. He was crushed. He vowed to train harder and beat Tyson. Only to find that he couldn't.

No matter how much he trained, how hard he worked, he could not beat the younger blader. He had reached a plateau.

He pushed himself harder than we thought was humanly possible. The intensity of his training regime doubled, tripled, quadrupled, heck, he increased it hundredfold. And still the plateau was there. His goal was so close yet so far. He could not beat Tyson.

Soon, he was training 10, 16, 20 hours a day, seven days a week. We had to force him to sleep and eat after a while. We could see things going downhill.

The doctors diagnosed him with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a mild case of depression. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the obsession was-to be the best-and the compulsion-the insane training-or what was causing the depression-not being able to beat Tyson.

He was eating and sleeping less and less. He always had dark circles under his eyes and had lost a lot of weight. We were considering putting him in the hospital or taking away his blade, but he wouldn't hear of it. He insisted that he was fine.

We didn't know it at the time, but he was sneaking out at night for more training and he lied about his health constantly. His body could only take so much and it was reaching the endpoint. We tried to tell him that he was wasting away his life. He continued to turn a deaf ear.

Someone went to wake him one morning, I think it was Tyson, and he wasn't there. We searched the dojo in the hopes he was inside, to no avail.

He was outside, lying on the ground next to the bey-dish. We could only hope he was asleep or passed out. Our worst fears were confirmed when we examined him closer and saw that he was unmoving, unblinking, not breathing, dead.

The funeral was a few days later. All we could think was 'we failed'. The tears were shed, condolences exchanged. But we all knew he died in vain.

He died trying to be perfect. He died because he couldn't handle the elusive dream being taken away. He died because of a stupid plateau. So I ask you now, Kai, was it all worth it?

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RTC: Okay, it is very short-only about 600 words-but it is rather random and it came out of nowhere, and at any rate, I hope you all enjoyed. I just felt like my writing skills sort of reached a plateau after maybe the first few months of writing. I mean, I read other people's fics and I see their writing changing, becoming more sophisticated, better, and then I notice that I'm not going anywhere. I'm stuck. Mind you, I'm not as obsessed as Kai and I'm not intentionally pushing myself or anything, and maybe that's my downfall. I don't know. As for Phoenix from the Flames 1978, I'd have to say that her work has changed and improved so incredibly much since I read her first fic and I don't think I've mentioned that to her either! Anway, I love you all for reading this random thing, thanks!


End file.
